1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a flat panel display and method for fabricating the same and, more particularly, to a flat panel display having an anti-electrostatic configuration and method for fabricating the same.
2. Description of the Background
Generally, a cathode ray tube (CRT) has been typically used for televisions, monitors of measurement instruments, information terminals, and the like. However, the CRT may not satisfy a need for compact and lightweight electronic products because of its weight and size.
Flat panel display devices having compact and lightweight features have been attracting attention as substitutes for the CRT. Flat panel display devices include liquid crystal displays (LCD), organic electroluminescence displays (OLED), and other like displays.
The flat panel display may generally include a thin film transistor (TFT) substrate having a TFT and red, green and blue electroluminescent elements.
Such a flat panel display is typically manufactured by a TFT array process, which includes forming a TFT for applying a pixel signal, forming red, green and blue electroluminescent elements for implementing colors, and cutting to form cells of a unit flat panel display.
The cell cutting process may include a scribing process of forming a cutting line on the TFT substrate after forming the electroluminescent elements and a breaking process for cutting the TFT substrate along the cutting line by applying force.
The process of manufacturing the flat panel display may be primarily performed on an insulating substrate such as a glass substrate. The glass substrate may be very sensitive to static electricity since instantaneously generated charge cannot be electrically discharged down the substrate when the substrate is an insulator. Therefore, the static electricity may damage an insulating layer, the TFT or the electroluminescent elements formed on the insulating substrate.
The static electricity may have a very high voltage and a very low electric charge to locally deteriorate the substrate. Additionally, the static electricity may be largely generated during the cell cutting process of cutting the substrate, and mostly introduced through a pad portion of a gate line and a data line, where it may deteriorate a channel of the TFT.
FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view showing a TFT substrate of an conventional organic electroluminescent display.
Referring to FIG. 1, gate lines 110 and data lines 120 are formed orthogonally to each other on an insulating substrate. A switching TFT and a driving TFT (not shown) may be formed in pixel regions defined by the crossing gate and data lines 110, 120.
An anti-electrostatic wire 130, which may be referred to as a shorting bar, which binds the plurality of gate lines 110 and data lines 120, may be formed at edges of the substrate, i.e., at ends of the gate lines 110 and the data lines 120. The anti-electrostatic wires 130 may be electrically connected to each other.
Consequently, the gate lines 110 and the data lines 120 may be integrally connected to one another, and when static electricity is generated from the gate lines 110 or the data lines 120, it may be electrically discharged through the anti-electrostatic wire 130.
As the flat panel displays have become larger, their substrate area has also increased. Hence, this greater substrate area may generate static electricity having a relatively large electric charge. When a large electric charge is generated as described above, static electricity may be introduced into a channel of the TFT even with the presence of the anti-electrostatic wire.